ARTISTS
OSOSONIC (Martin Roedolf) is a Rotterdam based modular artist and initiator of SAW. Inspired in the 80s by the music of Kraftwerk, Gino Soccio and Giorgio Morode, he played as an DJ underground, Italo Disco, Acid and New beat. From the late 90s he organized various underground parties in Rotterdam.
In 2017 During his tour in China, he came in touch with the underground scene of Shanghai that made live techno using synthesizers. It was there that he first became interested in analog synthesisers. Later in 2019 he discover the beauty of Modular synthesizers and immediately fell in love. His first public performance with modular synths was in the Kunsthal Rotterdam. Where he started a project together with Barkode and the TU Delft. Other places where he performed include Weelde, Keile Cafe, Mono, Berlin Modular Socity, Unknown Electronics, Museumnacht Rotterdam and did a guarilla act with Melanist during Modular Day in Barcelona.
Under the name NEW ACID he combines Experimental Soundscapes, Field Recording and Minimal Techno in an inspiring way.
OSOSONIC
Barkode works from a great interest in the functioning of systems and the influence of time. Systems that investigate, uncover and provide meaning to a particular balance or imbalance. In addition, the concept of time gives coherence, Zeitgeist and/or Randomness in both dramaturgy and form of the work. These studies try to focus on (re)defining existential values and tell micro-stories from a fragmented world.
Barkode uses a method of building and designing series, databases, diaries and encyclopaedias. These archives form a basis from which the work arises in editing, performance or screening. Hardware and software play an intrinsic role in the development and realisation of the projects, as a set-of-tools or from an implementation of algorithms and AI to result into the so-called Freedom of the machine.
Since 1998, Barkode Studio has been developing media art such as audio and video performances, films and video artworks, installations, sound artworks, music compositions, radio and podcasts. Barkode Studio curates and produces interdisciplinary art and culture programs for festivals, museums and venues.
BARKODE
JVLIɅ was born in South Germany, where she felt disconnected from the local music scene. Her passion for electronic music drew her to Berlin in 2014, where she discovered techno and found her true home in the city's vibrant club scene. She quickly gravitated towards the harder and industrial techno sounds at her favorite venues, Tresor and the old Griesmühle.The journey into music production began when she met Orbasan, a producer, DJ, and friend, who helped her take her first steps with Ableton. After a few starts and stops, she decided to invest in her first synthesizer, the Korg minilogue XD, which proved to be a significant turning point in her understanding of production and sound.
In 2022, JVLIɅ attended Superbooth, where she connected with the Berlin Modular Society and made some amazing friends in the scene. With the support of this community, she continued to refine her skills and develop her unique sound, which blends elements of industrial, hypnotic, and hard techno with experimental textures.Today, she is deeply committed to music production, spending almost every day working on her craft and exploring new creative avenues. Her setup has evolved significantly over time, and she feels that she has finally arrived at a sound that truly represents her artistic vision.JVLIɅ is excited to share her music with the world, and she is currently preparing for her first gigs in 2023. With a deep passion for techno and a talent for improvisation, she looks forward to connecting with audiences and sharing her love for the genre.
JVLIɅ
Josef van Galen is Amsterdam based producer and motion picture sound designer. After years of being active in the Dutch club and festival scene as a DJ, 50% of New wave electro band ‘Pin Up Club’ and a lot of edits and remixes on Italo label: ‘Bordello a Parigi’ under the ‘Vanzetti and Sacco’ moniker, it was time to get back to the core: EBM.
Always looking for trembling rhythms, gritty textures and filmic ambiances, fat bass lines en industrial tones. Intuition, ideas and experiments take the foreground, genre-defying live jams the consequence. As live performance it could be easily placed: from chill-out and listening session to pounding club nights..anything can happen.
JOSEF
VAN GALEN
After a 20 years career as a jazz guitarist and contemporary composer touring around the world and releasing several albums, in 2018 Julien Roux discovered eurorack modular machines which allowed him to finally create the sounds he couldn't access on an acoustic or electric instrument.
He is now touring with his modular system under the name of OCTODIODE."I try to reach some deep points under the skin of the audience, and with some melodic sequences,
project their soul through universes."
OCTODIODE
Jean Diklab is Rotterdam based live electronic musician. Live electronic music artist with strong emphasis on Techno.
The journey begins from Academic Music roots. After that, I made the decision to build my own symphonic orchestra and play my Simphony. Because of the violin/viola sound extraction methods, string ensembles, orchestral experience etc., I chose the path to play mandatory only live in real time.
It is important for me to observe the birth of sound. How with the instruments/friends(each of them have his/her unique character and language) we will find a way to speak with each other and with the listeners. Every Time it's different/spontan/fun, every time it's different aesthetic, new colours, new jokes in the orchestra, what we can show only playing during real time. It's always a journey and adventure. Can be a musical act, can be the performance/never know.
What can I say, I invite you to this beautiful adventure with me. Afterwards, tell me about your feelings.
JEAN DIKLAB
Miss Tahloulah May is a modular synthesist and composer. MTM's roots lie in Hip Hop. Nowadays DAWless production of electronics sounds like IDM, Triphop, Ambient House is her signature. Through live performances with her modular system (nicknamed SapG) she shares her passion. Miss Tahloulah May was born September 1986 in Paramaribo (Surinam). Inspired by her mother, she developed an interest in all sorts of music like Soul, Funk, Jazz and Electronic music at a young age.
Around 1994 she started to develop her love for Hip Hop and Electronic music and the Hip Hop culture. The way creative boundries were pushed within these musical fields inspired her to look for her own musical and creative identity. This led to her finding her musical path decades later. Until about 2020 MTM made instrumental Hip Hop music solely using sampled material. But because she felt that this limited her creativity, she started studying bass guitar, synthesizer and drums.
MISS
TAHLOULAH
MAY
CONSUMPTION is a collective that focuses on live techno. They mix melodic and dark tones to create an atmosphere to truly loose yourself in. From driving baselines to dreamy minimalistic scenes, their music is ready to make you dance.
These artists first started making music together about 2,5 years ago and never stopped since. They played at many home party’s in which they developed their unique style. And after playing their first gig in Berlin they knew they wanted more. In their words: “Playing for Berlin Modular Society was an unreal experience, after partying in Berlin for many years we were able to perform a live set that made people dance and smile. This feeling can’t be beat by anything else.” This gave them the spirit to really push further and get better every day.
After mainly working on their live sets they are now also focusing on recording four of their best songs which will showcase their true style.
NFHC
Oliv Oliv, the moniker of Olivier Terpstra, is a modular synth performer. His music is best described as cinematic techno: long build ups and fast beats combined with field recordings that are captured on film sets during his work as a sound recordist. Combining these recordings with the rich analog sounds created on the modular synthesizer, the audience enters
a whole new universe.
Experience it as a real-time (live)production of the massive soundtrack for your imaginary film—full of field recordings, compelling melodies, and a hinge of techno.
OLIV OLIV
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RDONK
Conatus Modular (Fabio Bartali) has been discovering the world of electronic music through modular since 2019. Before that he had been playing guitar, but only after discovering modular synths has he been able to enjoy, explore, create and experiment freely with music and sound.
His YouTube channel is a sonic playground for his modular exploration, with jams and sounds going in several directions, ranging from dark and gritty soundscapes to more rhythmic jams.
CONATUS MODULARARI
“Interested in music as an ethereal concept, One Armed Pugilist combats the aural void through human-machine interaction. Starting from the solitude of black nothingness, the music wanders where the mood dictates. Inspired by a host of genres, from Classical to Metal and Jazz to Minimal Techno, One Armed Pugilist is unafraid of exploring unmapped territory, but often fails to find a way back. Perfecting the art of composition by coincidence and getting mostly nowhere."
ONE ARMED PUGILIST
Dan Graveyard is an Amsterdam based musician. He uses a computer less (DAWless) live setup to make music. 100% improvised and either in the realm of hypnotic techno or ambient.
After spending his teens as a guitarist for multiple bands spanning a vast amount of genres. Dan Graveyard started making electronic music at the end of 2019. He wanted to spend as little time as possible behind the computer so he was naturally drawn to computer less setups. Live, improvised, pure and filled with energy. An endless search for new ways to patch. New ways to make his music more interesting.
Dan Graveyard's sets are always different there's no 'save' or 'recall' button on his machines. This means he's creating and hearing the music together with the audience. Nerve wrecking, but mostly exciting for both him and his audience.
DAN GRAVEYARD
DRUSNOISE is a live, electronic music producer, sound artist and co-founder of the Berlin Modular Society. Originally from Canada, his roots in techno lie in the 90s rave scenes of Toronto, Vancouver and London before reaching to the German capital where he currently resides. drusnoise integrates analog modular synthesizers with digital FX and organic samples to create a style that flows from lush ambient tones to gritty techno, in addition to a few curveballs along the way. Over the past years, drusnoise has performed live techno sets in Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam with dates this year in Barcelona, Utrecht, Trondheim, and Köln coming up. drusnoise also releases and performs experimental sound art works incorporating field recordings, sonified climate change data, and feedback loops.
Known in the outside world as Dr. Steve Williams, his academic work includes conducting and publishing research on sustainable energy transition in Canada, Germany, and Sweden. Keen to merge themes of sustainability with dance music and sound art in today’s eco-challenging climate, drusnoise builds live sets from a plethora of natural sources including vocals from sustainability lectures, climate data turned into MIDI/CV/gate/modulation, plants sending voltage to synthesizers, sounds of electromagnetic radiation, beats made from the sounds of wind turbines, and field recordings turn into some dark, strange, and hard techno.
DRUSNOISE
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WITGEZICHT
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CINEMATIC
LABORATORY
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PAUL TAS
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NOVA CAZA
For years janfansen has been producing abstract electronic ambient, using modular and Ciat Lonbarde gear and Ableton. Starting out in a punk band in the 80’s, moving through hiphop into electronics.
In the 90’s he was part of Cosmic Connection and released a few CD’s, combining triphop, techno, ambient and dub. One of the highlights was performing on a festival during the Love Parade.
Later on continued by himself, looking for a relaxing, pulsating sound that fills the room like incense. Often using deep basses, minimal beats, ethereal sounds, loops and drones to produce a meditative, hypnotic vibe. Barely actual songs but rather soundtracks to nonexistent movies.
janfansen
Born and raised under the smoke of industrial Eindhoven, Roy Orbon (1971) started experimenting with music at a young age. First (and still) as a bass and guitar player, but quickly followed his curiosity for electronic instruments when he first saw a synthesizer in a student dorm. He became fascinated by these instruments at the intersection of technology and creativity. A few years later, his living room looked more like a synthesizer studio.
Fast forward a couple of decades, he started to build a modular synthesizer, and this sparked a new wave of creativity. He completely changed his workflow to 100% live improvised techno on a Eurorack modular system. Under the name Isochrone he combines aethereal drones, hypnotizing basses and hard pounding techno kicks, and everything in between and beyond, all in one performance. Patching and tweaking to approximate the intricate balance between control and chaos never ceases to inspire and amaze. He embraces the duality of limitations and endless opportunities of the equipment and uses this to push his creativity and live performance further. The result is a mix of never before heard sounds, served with a side of pulsating rhythms on a solid foundation of danceable beats.
ISOCHRONE
Paul Alstein is an electronic ambient artist from Utrecht, The Netherlands. After having spend half his playing drums in bands, he became increasingly interested in the interplay between ambient music and sound design. This obsession led him to discover the world of electronic music and modular synthesizers.
Paul aims to create ambient music that is not boring. By combining electronic sounds with field recordings of random sounds from everyday life, he explores the interaction between electronic music and the music that is captured in the sounds that surround us. Paul’s debut EP, City Sounds, was recorded during a 5-day residence in the city of The Hague. In the daytime, Paul travelled around the city to collect sounds that capture the ambience of city life. At night, the sounds were brought to life trough a small modular synthesizer and a looper pedal. The result is an atmospheric ambient album that combines electronic music with random city sounds that no one ever pays attention to. The album is mixed by JJJ Sielcken (known from his work with Aestrid, Jett Rebel and Herman van Veen) and complemented by the photography of Bram Petraeus.
PAUL ALSTEIN
Where do you call home?
It’s a simple question, but one that Australian-born musical nomad Burnside can struggle to answer.
After cutting his musical teeth in the underground rock scene of his native Adelaide, an increasingly nomadic lifestyle carried him through cities and music scenes from Australia, Germany, Italy to India. Where his eyes were opened to electronic music, thanks in no small part to the country’s rickshaw drivers and the Hindi dance tunes blasted from their oversized subwoofers.
Currently based in Berlin, Burnside distils his musical adventures into showstopping live techno sets, where he weaves melodies from digital noise and analogue modular synths over the pulsating 4/4 heartbeat of the German capital.
Burnside’s current output is focused on these live performances, bringing a sense of improvisation and a certain punk rock energy to techno. Recorded in locations across Europe, you can stream his performances from Berlin clubs, studios, to some of the continent’s most breathtaking and off the beaten track locations such as: an alpine cable car in Austria or an abandoned hilltop castle in Italy.
Burnside is the founder and host of Alive.BLN, a platform that promotes live performers from the Berlin underground electronic scene. Alive.BLN is broadcast as a monthly radio show on Rough Radio, with performance videos on YouTube.